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WHAT’S UP WESTSIDE ..................PAGE 2 KNOW BEFORE YOU GO ................PAGE 4 CRIME WATCH ..................................PAGE 7 COMICS & STUFF ............................PAGE 8 MYSTERY PHOTO ............................PAGE 9
MONDAY
04.10.17 Volume 16 Issue 127
@smdailypress
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Santa Monica Daily Press
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Recent deaths cloud city’s Vision Zero plan Five people killed one month after City adopts pedestrian plan BY KATE CAGLE Daily Press Staff Writer
By the time Steven White got a City response about the broken walk signal near his apartment someone had been killed. Police have not said whether they believe the woman was in the crosswalk when a driver hit her, but there is a pedestrian crossing at the intersection where the crash happened in the early morning hours last week. To White, the timing of the news seemed surreal: Monday: a woman killed at 18th Street and Santa Monica Boulevard. Tuesday: a notification from the “Go SM Gov” App – five days after White had submitted a complaint – saying the signal had died. Matthew Hall
SEE ZERO PAGE 6
PEDESTRIANS: The city wants to promote biking and walking but a recent string of pedestrian deaths have raised questions about safety.
Bone marrow drive for teacher fighting cancer BY KATE CAGLE Daily Press Staff Writer
The community will come together Wednesday to help a teacher, wife and mother get through her second bout of cancer when the Santa Monica Police Department hosts a bone marrow donor registry drive. Jail administrator Jennifer Estrada organized the drive to help the wife of 11-year veteran Officer Enrique Rodriguez. Doctors diagnosed his wife, Maria, a breast cancer survivor, with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia in December. “It’s horrible to think that
somebody who has gone through that and is so wonderful – a great teacher, a great wife, a great mother, that it happened to her again,” Enrique said. “It’s hard to understand and comprehend and, sometimes, hard to deal with.” Enrique has worked at the police department since 1994, first as a civilian before becoming a sworn officer in 2006. He currently works on the Homeless Liaison Program, the task force that deals exclusively with issues facing the transient population. Maria is a second grade teacher at El Marino Elementary School in Culver City. The couple has a 19-
year-old daughter. The law enforcement community has rallied around the family to help as much as they can – a recent cupcake sale raised a staggering $7,000 for the family’s medical costs. However, to survive cancer again Maria needs a bone marrow transplant. Her family has been tested but only yielded a 25 percent match from her sister. Doctors hope she can do better than that. “It’s been a rollercoaster of emotions,” Enrique said. He knows it is unlikely the drive will find a match for Maria. Her DNA has already SEE BONE PAGE 5
LA marches to protect science MARINA ANDALON Daily Press Staff Writer
Local nonprofit Heal The Bay is encouraging Santa Monicans to publicly support science and science education at an upcoming protest. This year scientists, educators and local organizations are making a statement by participating in the March for Science event on Earth Day, April 22. Los Angeles is anticipating over 50,000 participants at the March for Science Los Angeles event in Pershing Square. That means it will be the second largest of the 400+ March for Science events happening worldwide on Earth Day. Coming in first is the National March
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for Science in Washington D.C “We are marching for science and policy,” said March for Science Los Angeles, Lead Organizer, and Communications Director, Alex Bradley. “ Science itself is generally separate from politics and science should be playing an integral role in policy.” The march is meant to represent a gathering of people standing up for science, to serve our environment. Many organizations participating are advocating for science education, and research funding. According to the March for Science official website, there are now an estimated 170 organizations that have joined as partners
for the event. With two weeks left until the march, there is a total of 480 satellite marches scheduled worldwide on every continent except Antarctica. There are 358 marches in the United States, and so far 35 marches in California alone. Why the sudden urge to stand up and march for science? Last month the White House presented their budget proposal. The recent budget proposal mentions budget and workforce cuts for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) starting this October when SEE SCIENCE PAGE 11
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